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Resources are typically people included in your project plan, whether or not they are assigned to tasks. However, a resource could also include anything that is used to complete a project, including equipment and other materials (such as cement or web servers).
You can add several types of resources to your project.
Enterprise resources An enterprise resource is a part of the list of resources for the whole organization; therefore, each of these resources can be shared across multiple projects. Typically, the list of enterprise resources is managed by an administrator, and each project manager adds these resources to their projects as needed.
Non-enterprise resources A non-enterprise resource, or local resource, is not a part of the list of resources for the whole organization. No other project manager can use your non-enterprise resources in their projects.
Generic resources Generic resources are used to specify the staffing requirements for a project, such as carpenters and developers, or a team of resources.
What do you want to do?
Add resources to your project
On the View tab, in the Resource Views group, choose Resource Sheet.
(In Project 2007, choose View > Resource Sheet, and then choose View > Table > Entry.)
In the Resource Name field, type a job title, material, or generic resource name.
If you want to designate resource groups, then in the Group field for the resource name, type the name of the group.
Specify the resource type.
To specify that this resource is a work resource, in the Type field, select Work.
To specify that this resource is a material resource, in the Type field, select Material. In the Material Label field, type the label (for example, yards, tons, or boxes) for the resource.
To specify that this resource is a cost resource, in the Type field, select Cost.
In the Max. Units field for the resource, type the number of total units that this resource is available for this project. The maximum units value specifies how much of this resource is available for this project — for example, part-time or multiples.
For example, if you have a resource who is available for your project two days a week, you can enter a maximum units value of 40%. You can use maximum units to specify multiple availability of a resource designation. For example, suppose you have a resource named Engineers, a single resource that represents three individual engineers on your team. You can enter the maximum units for Engineers as 300%. You can schedule all three engineers for full-time work at one time without the Engineers resource being overallocated.
You can enter maximum units as a percentage (50%, 100%, 300%), or as a decimal (0.5, 1, 3).
To create a budget resource, select the resource, right-click the resource name, and then choose Information. Select the Budget check box.
You can add a work resource and associated information by using your MAPI email address book, from the Active Directory, or from Microsoft Project Server. On the Resource tab, in the Insert group, choose Add Resources, and then choose Build Team from Enterprise (Project Professional only), Active Directory, or Address Book. (In Project 2007, choose Insert> New Resource From, and then choose Address Book, Active Directory, or Project Server.)
Add enterprise resources to your project (Project Professional only)
On the Resource tab, in the Insert group, choose Add Resources > Build Team from Enterprise.
(In Project 2007, choose Tools > Build Team from Enterprise.)
In the Build Team from Enterprise dialog box, in the Existing filters box, select the filter that you want to apply. The filtered list of enterprise resources is displayed in the Enterprise Resource column. Any resources already assigned to your project team are listed in the Project Resource column.
To search for resources who are available to work a specific number of hours during a particular time range, select the Available to work check box. Enter the amount of time a resource needs to be available to work, and then select the date range by using the From and To boxes.
In the Enterprise Resource column, select the enterprise resource that you want to add to your project, and then choose Add. To select multiple resources, hold down CTRL while you select each resource.
To find enterprise resources that match the skills and other attributes of one of your team's existing resources, select the resource that you want to match under Project Resource, and then choose Match.
To replace an existing resource with an enterprise resource, in the Project Resource column, select the resource or generic resource that you want to replace. Under Enterprise Resource, select the new enterprise resource, and then choose Replace.
When you replace a resource, the replaced resource is not removed if they have completed any actual work. The replacement resource is assigned the remaining work.
To add a proposed resource to the project team, in the Book column, choose Proposed.
To view a graph of a selected resource's availability, choose Graphs.
Choose OK.
Adding an enterprise resource to your project allows you only to assign the resource to a task on your project. You cannot make changes to the attributes of enterprise resources, such as pay rates or availability.
If you want to add resources to the list of available enterprise resources, you must import the resources.
Add generic enterprise resources to your project (Project Professional only)
On the Resources tab, in the Insert group, choose Add Resources > Build Team from Enterprise.
(In Project 2007, choose Tools > Build Team from Enterprise.)
If there are more than 1,000 enterprise resources, you can filter the list of resources by using enterprise outline codes. Outline codes are defined based upon the requirements of your organization.
In the Build Team dialog box, choose to expand Customize filters.
Under Customize filters, select Generic in the Field Name column, select Equals in the Test column, and then type Yes in the Values column.
Choose Apply filter to apply the filter settings to the list of enterprise resources.
To search for resources who are available to work a specific number of hours during a particular time range, select the Available to work check box. Enter the amount of time a resource needs to be available to work, and then select the date range by using the From and To boxes.
In the Enterprise Resource column, select the generic resource that you want to add to your project, and then choose Add. To select multiple resources, hold down CTRL while you select each resource.
Add non-enterprise generic resources to your project (Project Professional only)
On the View tab, in the Resource Views group, choose Resource Sheet.
(In Project 2007, select Resource Sheet on the View menu.)
In the Resource Name column, type a name for the generic resource, such as "carpenter."
Right-click the resource name, and choose Information. In the Resource Information dialog box, select the General tab, and then select the Generic check box
On the Custom Fields tab, under Custom Fields, enter values for any fields that are required for this generic resource.
Because these custom fields are unique to each organization, see your administrator for answers to any questions about their use.
Note: You can add any generic resource to the list of enterprise resources. You might have to specify other attributes for the resource, such as calendars and skill sets, depending upon the requirements of your organization.
There are two ways to add resources to your projects:
Build Team Using the Build Team feature, you can search for enterprise resources that have the required skills to complete the tasks in your project.
Resource plan During project initiation, before a detailed project plan with tasks and assignments has been prepared, you can use a resource plan to represent the resource requirements for the project at a high level. This is helpful when you need to advise the resource managers and department managers of upcoming work, but you do not know the specific tasks or resources that will make up the project plan.
Note: You can create and view resource plans only by using Project Web Access. The resource plans are not visible in Project Professional, and the plans do not limit the resource availability within Project.
What do you want to do?
Add resources to a project by using Build Team
On the Quick Launch, choose Projects.
Select the row for the project that you want to build a team for, and then choose Build Team.
On the Build Team page, a list of resources on the left shows all the resources that you have permission to see within the resource breakdown structure code for your organization. The list on the right shows the resources that are already assigned in your project.
Select the resources on the left that you want to assign to the project, and then choose Add. Select the resource by selecting the check box next to the resource.
To create a list on the left that contains only those resources that have skills that match a resource on the right, select the resource on the right, and then choose Match.
Finding resources in this way is particularly helpful when you have generic resources in your project and you want to find real resources (people) with the same skills to replace the generic resources.
If you want to replace the resource on the right with the resource on the left, select both the resource on the left and the resource on the right, and then choose Replace. If the resource has actual work values recorded for tasks, that resource cannot be used in the project.
Under Booking Type, select Committed if you want to commit the resource to the project, or select Proposed if you do not yet have authorization to commit the resource to the project.
Tip: To see a graph showing the availability of the selected resources before you add them to your schedule, select the resources on the left, and then choose Graph.
Choose Save Changes to add the new resources to your project.
You can also create a filter to see only a subset of resources on the Build Team page:
Choose View Options , and then choose Filter.
In the Filter list, select the filter that you want to apply.
Select a field in the Field Name list and a test in the Test list. In the Value list, select a value to test for, or set a range of values by typing two values separated by a comma (,).
If the filter contains more than one criterion row, select an operator in the And/Or column to start a new row.
To test whether the filter will return valid results before you apply it to your resources, choose Validate Filters.
Choose OK to apply the filter to the list of resources.
Note: Project managers may not be able to view and assign all resources in their organization. See your server administrator if you need permission to build a team.
Create a resource plan for a project proposal
On the Quick Launch, under Projects, choose Proposals and Activities.
Select the project for which you want to create a resource plan, and then choose Resource Plan.
Choose View Options .
In the Date range and Units boxes, type a date range and the time units to display in the timephased part of the resource plan table.
In the Display Units box, indicate whether you want the values in the resource table to show hours, days, or FTEs (full-time equivalents).
To determine how the summary resource assignments are presented in the reports that you can generate from Project Web Access, in the Calculate resource utilization from section, select one of the following:
Project plan If you want to calculate resource availability from all assignments within the project, but not from the project's resource plan, select this option.
Resource plan If you want to calculate resource availability by using resource information in the resource plan, select this option.
Project Plan until If you want to calculate resource availability from all assignments within the project until a specific date, select this option. The resource utilization from the resource plan will be used to determine the resource availability after the specified date.
Select the Show total work check box to show the total hours in the resource plan table instead of timephased values.
In the Items per page box, type the maximum number of lines to display in the resource plan table.
Choose Apply to apply the setting to the resource grid without saving.
Choose Publish to publish the plan so that it appears as a project proposal within the Project Center.
If you want to save the proposal without publishing it, choose Save. Other team members will not be able to see the proposal in the Project Center.
Why can't I perform some actions in Project Web Access?
Depending on the permissions settings you used to log on to Project Web Access, you may not be able to see or use certain features. Also, what you see on some pages may differ from what is documented if your server administrator customized Project Web Access and did not customize the Help to match.


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"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."
— Audre Lorde
December 10 is recognized as International Human Rights Day and celebrated around the world. Various heads of states and leaders of human rights organizations will issue stern statements declaring their unshakable commitment to human rights. The governments of many Western nations will take the opportunity to demonstrate their moral superiority by conjuring up whatever regimes or heads of state that are currently in the cross-hairs of these pious protectors of human rights.
This annual ritual poses an interesting set of questions as to how the U.S. and other Western powers are able to get away with wrapping themselves in the cloak of human rights respectability while being responsible for unspeakable atrocities over the last few centuries. And how is it that many other non-Western nations and most Western-based international human rights organizations are complicit in this charade?
For some who have attempted to answer these questions, the conclusion was that cynicism and hypocrisy explained the obvious disparity in deed and action on the part of these powerful states. But while attractive, that explanation seems too easy and does not explain how sincere advocates of human rights, who see themselves as unbiased and who occasionally will criticize Western states, still find themselves more often than not supporting Western powers in their various adventures to "defend" human rights in the form of "humanitarian military interventions" to economic warfare through sanctions against select states.
A better explanation for the double standards and intellectual myopia of human rights organizations rests with the distorted, partial and biased world-view projected as universalism that is at the heart of the liberal ideological project. For mainstream human rights practitioners, the assumption that the human rights idea is a "universally" accepted political and moral construct is uncontested. This position asserts that the human rights idea represents an objective, politically neutral framework that reflects the natural evolutionary progress of the global community.
However, those of us who are human rights activists and also members of groups that have been at the margins – the colonized, the enslaved, the targets of European genocide and national oppression – the view of the unassailable truths of a human rights framework emanating from the same nations and peoples responsible for our suffering requires a more serious and critical analysis.
Our perspective suggests that the human rights idea is not innocent. As the ideology of the capitalist market system and its imperialist expansion in its colonialist, neo-colonial and now neo-liberal forms, the "naturalization" of Eurocentric classical liberalism with its supposed universal applicability, represents one of the most successful ideological victories of mainstream human rights.
While classical European liberalism professed a fidelity to the "rights of man" and the proclamation that all "men" are equal, it simultaneously provided philosophical justifications for slavery, genocide, settler colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy and imperialism – systems that degrade, dominate, destroy, and systemically oppress human subjects. How has liberalism been able to achieve this? Because at the heart of the liberal project are exclusionary criteria for who deserves to have rights, that tragically for millions of people during the last 500 years of European dominance, rest on a stratification of humanity in which Europeans and their civilizational project is at the apex. It is that internal moral contradiction that explains how Thomas Jefferson could speak of fundamental equality while holding slaves and raping Black women; how Winston Churchill could call for self-determination of nations while maintaining a colonial empire; how U.S. authorities can justify kidnapping and assassination even of U.S. citizens and the invasions of States, all in the name of fighting Islamic terrorists; and how war can be employed in the name of "humanitarian intervention" and the "responsibility to protect" that violates the United Nations Charter and results in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives.
It is that internal moral myopia that explains how President Obama can justify Israeli colonial brutality in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and Gaza, largely ignore the slaughter at the hands of Egyptian security forces while arguing passionately for waging humanitarian war on Syria, and turn his back on the predominantly Black retired public sector workers in Detroit whose human right to the social security of old age in the form of their earned pensions and health care is unprotected while the city is being looted by private banks and bondholders.
For many social justice activists, it is precisely these moral contradictions by both Western and non-Western states that has created deep dissatisfaction and even mistrust of human rights as an instrument for radical social change. It appears to many of these activists that the orthodox framework is not able to offer any more than bland reforms and a depoliticized politics.
In response to the human rights crisis of relevance, a "people-centered human rights" (PCHR) concept and approach has been developing from the margins of the U.S. human rights movement over the last few years. Politically informed by the African American radical human rights tradition and radical feminism, the modern expression of which developed out of the organizing and agitation directed at the newly formed United Nations between 1945 and 1951, this tradition of human rights struggle combined anti-racism and anti-colonialism with a commitment to systemic transformation. In the contemporary period, PCHR advocates continue that approach and have as a primary strategic objective the decolonization of human rights in order to effective an authentic decolonization of U.S. society.
As a political project historically and socially grounded in the needs and realities of oppressed communities and peoples and committed to social justice and the development of the people as autonomous political subjects, it rejects the mystification of the supposedly non-political, universalist perspective and practice of human rights.
This revolutionary approach to human rights is informed by an analysis of the oppressive, anti-human social/historical context of national and global social relationships. This analysis concludes that all of the forms of contemporary national and global relationships – capitalism, neoliberalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism and imperialism – are oppressive and serve as structural and ideological impediments for the realization of the full range of human rights.
The alternative ethical foundation that drives the vision of PCHR advocates is based on the communitarian principles of social solidarity, cooperation, non-discrimination in all social relationships, collective public ownership of the earth's resources, respect for difference, self-determination of all peoples and the recognition and respect for the inherent dignity of all individuals and peoples.
A commitment to these values automatically places PCHR advocates in opposition to capitalist society and its social relationships. Capitalism by definition denies individuals and groups voice and dignity in all spheres of social life. The corrosive realities of extreme social inequality, economic dislocation, unemployment and job insecurity, violence and social fragmentation, corporate and community level criminality, neo-fascist repression, corruption and ecological destruction are material and cultural expressions of the incompatibility of neoliberal capitalist society with the idea of the inherent dignity of human beings that is at the center of the human rights idea.
As the bipartisan hustle continues to intensify the policies of economic austerity domestically and war abroad to protect and extend the power of the 1 percent, we have no illusions about the possibilities of PCHR being embraced and implemented without a fight. We have already experienced body blows from all quarters and expect more because the PCHR approach will not be easily accepted by the human rights mainstream.
But on this human rights day, for those of us fighting from the margins for a new social reality in the U.S. and globally, we declare without apology that it is only through the radical transformation of society based on an alternative set of ethics and social relationships that the full potential of the human rights idea can be realized. For us, the fight for human rights is a life and death struggle with the future of our communities and peoples at stake. It is a fight that we have no other choice but to wage and to win, knowing that we are on the right side of history and in reciprocal solidarity among people around the world who understand that human rights and dignity are not granted but lived.
Ajamu Baraka is an internationally recognized human rights defender whose experience spans four decades of domestic and international activism. As an activist, writer and organizer, he has been in the forefront of efforts to develop and apply a radical "People(s) – Centered human rights framework to social justice organizing and advocacy in the U.S. for the last two decades. Ajamu is currently an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington D.C. He can be reached through his website: www.AjamuBaraka.com

subset: commoncrawl


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Does an orgasm by any other name still feel as sweet?
Robin Mandell replies:Is cumming and having an orgasm the same thing? I'm a virgin. So I've never had sex. I just masturbate often. When I rub my clit for a while I get this amazing feeling and I can tell I squirt something out. After that, I get tired and stop. I can make myself do this multiple times and I consider that cumming. Is it an orgasm though? Is that how it's going to feel when I have sex?
First and foremost, no matter what we call it, if masturbation (or any other activity, for that matter) feels pleasurable, that's the most important thing. Regardless of the names we give things to put them in categories, our bodies are so unique in the way they work that these tidy little categories sometimes end up being more confusing than useful.
I suspect you want an answer that's more concrete than that, though.
With all the slang and scientific terms for sexual activities, experiences, and body parts there are, it's not surprising to have trouble defining things, or sorting out what words refer to what experiences. I'll give you the best and clearest answer I can, stating at the outset that other people might have different perspectives, or ways of expressing this, which likely aren't any more right or wrong than what I'm going to tell you.
Cumming, or coming, and orgasm are different terms people use for a sexual experience that is often seen--though is not always--a climactic or resolution experience during a sexual activity. Come is slang and tends to mean different things based on who you talk to. Orgasm is a term used by sex educators, healthcare providers, researchers, and the like, as well as by people talking about their own sexual experience. Ejaculation is another term sex educators and medical professionals use, as well as people who aren't sex educators or medical professionals.
While coming is used as slang for orgasm, it's also used to refer to ejaculation. I suspect that coming was a term coined to describe the experience of ejaculation and orgasm, in people who experience both ejaculation and orgasm, which is something people usually associate only with, and which happens most often for, people who have penises. A lot of our sexual terms and slang were -- and often still are -- based mostly on how men experience sex and sexual response.
Many people don't realize, or forget, that ejaculation and orgasm are two different physical processes, even though for some people, sometimes -- and quite commonly, for most people who have a penis -- they happen so close to the same time, or at the same time, they can feel like they're the same thing. Unfortunately, that way of understanding things leaves many people out of the loop. So, while some people may mean the same thing when they say coming versus when they say orgasm, I'm going to, for clarity's sake, avoid using the term "come" here, and talk about ejaculation or orgasm when I mean either one. Other terms that people use instead of orgasm or come include getting off, climaxing, nutting, and so on.
Cumming is a diminutive of coming, primarily coined by the adult entertainment industry a few decades ago. I can't tell you why they decided that a word already in the English language needed to be respelled. perhaps it was to distinguish the sexy sort of coming from the more mundane coming over to someone's house to visit. Perhaps some marketing professional had a "great" idea, and the word "cum" was born and has remained with us ever since.
What we choose to call our own orgasm is entirely individual and can often be -- and usually is, over time -- very personal. Words for sexual activities and experiences have different meanings for different people, based on how they were raised, the cultural environment they inhabit, and their own sexual history and experiences. One person's pet name for their orgasm, or for their body parts, or for a particular sexual activity could be another person's turn-off. Some people may have different words to describe different orgasmic or sexual experiences they've had over time. And a word or term that means one thing to one person can mean something radically different to someone else.
You mentioned that when you masturbate, you feel as if you "squirt." Some people with vulvas do squirt -- which is a sexual slang term that usually means to ejaculate -- when they masturbate, or engage in some kinds of sex with partners, though not always at the point of orgasm; sometimes it's before, sometimes it's after, sometimes it's without orgasm altogether.
Not all people who have vulvas squirt, or squirt all the time, and squirting is not required for there to be an orgasm. The idea that squirting signals orgasm comes, I think, from how people with penises often, though not always, ejaculate when they reach orgasm. That's probably where some of the confusion between the terms come and orgasm come from, as both are used to describe the processes of ejaculation and orgasm, which, in people with any genitalia are two separate processes, like I mentioned already. To learn more about vulvas and ejaculation, take a look at this article or this one.
An orgasm can feel different for everyone: it also won't feel the same every single time it happens for even any one person. It almost always involves muscle contractions in the pelvis, and can include muscle spasms or twitches in other parts of the body. Many people find that orgasm feels like a peak, and will typically experience euphoric, joyful or satisfied feelings during and after the orgasm. Some people describe it as a rushing sensation throughout their body. Some people describe it as a more gentle sensation of physical pleasure, emotional pleasure, or both. And sometimes, people describe a given orgasm as feeling like little to nothing at all.
For many people, orgasm can feel like a finish to the sexual activity they were engaging in. This isn't true for all people at all times, though. People with vulvas in particular can experience another orgasm, or several, right after the first, or with only a short rest period between. We also know that feeling satisfied by sex is, for most people, about much more than orgasm.
Is this how you will feel when you have sex? What I think you're asking about is whether this is what it will feel like when you have vaginal intercourse with a partner. This is what a lot of people mean when they say "sex", but sex includes a much broader set of behaviours and interactions.
All kinds of sexual activity can be considered sex, including masturbation. Masturbation is sex with yourself. The idea that only one thing is sex kind of belittles the existence of all other sexual activities, and particularly belittles solo sex. Solo sex, which can include masturbation but which can also involve fantasies, enjoyment of erotic written and visual material, and other ways a person might interact sensually or sexually with their body or with their sexuality in general, is a potent way for many people to enjoy their own sexuality. I mention this to say that you're already engaging in sex -- sex with yourself.
Sex isn't generally just about the physical though, whether we're talking about sex with a partner or sex with ourselves. Sexologists, people who study sex, have come up with a lot of different ways, or models, for describing the human experience of sex and sexuality. None of them describe everyone's experience, but can give us a good sense of how broad people's sexuality, and their experience of sex can really be.
One model I find particularly useful myself is called the Circles of Sexuality. The circles in it are the different components that can potentially make up a person's sexuality; the size of each circle, and the way they overlap, is specific to each individual's experience, and can change over time for a single person as they have different experiences, and as their minds, bodies, hearts and lives change.
The components listed in the Circles of Sexuality model are: sensuality, intimacy, sexual orientation and gender identity, sexual and reproductive health, sexual behaviours and practices, and power and agency. See how these components include not only physical aspects, but emotional, relational, and social aspects as well?
You can read more about what these different components mean, and see a visual representation of the circles here.
Being sexually involved with a partner is usually going to feel different than being sexual with yourself does. After all, it even feels different when you brush your hair than when someone else brushes it. When someone else brushes it, the way they touch you is often different from the way you touch yourself. It might be more comfortable to have someone brush your hair sometimes, because when someone else does it you don't have to reach behind your head. Sometimes they're gentler with you than you are with yourself, but other times they brush too hard (not meaning to, of course) and it hurts. Or, let's take dancing. It feels different to dance by yourself, in a group, or with a dancing partner. When you dance with others you have to synchronize the movements of your body with the way the other person is moving their body. That usually doesn't happen automatically. You're usually going to step on each others feet a few times, need to negotiate verbally, and, in the case of formal dancing (such as jazz or ballroom), follow at least some specific proscribed rules.
This isn't to say that your experiences with masturbation are completely different from the experiences you'll have should you ever choose to engage in partnered sex. Enjoying and knowing how to express our own sexuality on our own is a beautiful and, in my opinion, necessary thing. Exploring our sexuality on our own can also tell us a lot about what we do and don't enjoy, and has the capacity to give us the confidence to communicate that to a partner. If you didn't know what you liked to eat, you wouldn't be able to tell someone who was cooking for you what you wanted. However, if you'd never, say, eaten artichokes, and someone cooked them for you, you might well find that you loved them. Sex with a partner can be a new and exciting adventure like that, but its foundation is still going to be the experiences each partner has with their own sexuality.
Solo sex and partnered sex aren't mutually exclusive. They each feed the other, which is why it often makes me sad when I see people saying that they don't believe in masturbating once they've paired up with someone sexually, or feel hurt or angry when they find out a sexual partner they're with is still masturbating. I know you didn't say this, but I feel that retaining one's independent sexuality when one is partnered is so important that I had to mention it.
I hope this has answered your questions, and given you some food for thought. I'm leaving you with some links to some more information that you might find helpful.


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First of all, let me start by saying thank you. I thank you for all the calls and emails. I do apologize for not being so good at getting back to you. I do have an explanation, and I hope you will indulge me a bit and read a bit further. I promise it is not your standard the-dog-ate-my-cell-phone excuse.
I also wanted to take a few moments to write down all of my thoughts and information in one place. I want people to be able to read my words, so there is no confusion about what this is or isn't.
I hope that by telling about my experiences, I will help inform at least one person (or a dozen :) about Cushing's. I've included some resources that it has taken me over a year to find. I put it in one place to make things easier: photos, diagrams, videos, articles, etc. The videos on the left navigation bar are fascinating and very informative. I hope you will stick around and check things out. ~Melissa
As you know, I moved with my fiancé Jonathan to San Antonio in November 2006 for a job opportunity for him. I took some time off post election as we moved into our first home, geared up the wedding planning, and tried to enjoy the holidays. Very quickly, however, I realized something was wrong with me. I didn't feel like myself. For the next four to five months, I was stressed still, confused, crying a lot, feeling depressed, posting high blood pressure, gaining a lot of weight, and missing menstrual periods (2nd time in 14 months where I missed 4 periods in a row). I had terrible pains in my whole body, muscles and legs. I was a mess. Thinking all the wedding planning stress was the culprit, we decided to move the wedding from April to October 2007.
A few months later, there was really no relief from my symptoms. In March 2007, I went to my primary care doctor who checked my thyroid levels. The tests came back normal. The doctor was nice but didn't have any concern to continue to test me. I cried. I knew there was something wrong with me. I was determined to find out what it is. I took to the internet and within an hour I found my answer.
I will never forget that day: March 28, 2007 at 4:53 pm. A quick research of my symptoms brought me devastating news.
I suspected that I had Cushing's disease. Nine months, $100,000 in medical bills (our portion was only $4,000), and countless doctor visits, two MRIs, tubes of blood for lab work, and more tenacity than I knew I had got me to the end. On December 20, 2007, I would finally hear my San Antonio neurosurgeon give that same diagnosis: Cushing's disease.
My endocrinologist says that Cushing's is the most difficult diagnosis in the field of endocrinology if not all of medicine.
Leave it to me to be so extraordinary!
I am devoting this blog to create awareness for Cushing's disease. It is my little attempt to shed light on this disease by sharing my own struggles and experiences on the path to diagnosis and, eventually, surgery.
I hope you will take a moment to read further.
Cushing's is underdiagnosed because so many of its symptoms overlap with other, more common diseases. Doctors treat those diseases while telling us that Cushing's is far too rare for us to actually have. The doctors-turned-mathematicians tell us that it is nearly statistically impossible for us to have Cushing's. Yet, patient after patient have proven them wrong—through pathology confirmation at surgery—but there is still many more doctors and patients to reach out there.
Cushing's disease is a very rare disease that affects an estimated 10 to 15 people per million per year, or about 3,500 people per year in the US alone. Those of us with this disease feel like this number grossly underestimates how many undiagnosed people there are.
Cushing's disease affects women five times more frequently than men.
Cushing's disease caused by a benign tumor located on the pituitary gland, the little bean size gland hangs just below the brain. Named the "master gland," the pituitary gland controls every hormonal process in the body.
These tumors are benign, or non-cancerous, tumors of the pituitary gland secrete increased amounts of ACTH. Most patients have a single adenoma. After two brain/pituitary MRIs and consults with two different neurosurgeons, we now know that I have two pituitary tumors: a 5 millimeter tumor on the right side and a 3-millimeter tumor on the left side. While small—teeny tiny most would say—these little buggers are wreaking hormonal havoc on my body. Even a tumor of one cell can cause major upheaval to a person's hormonal balance.
Cortisol performs vital tasks in the body. It helps maintain blood pressure and cardiovascular function, reduces the immune system's inflammatory response, balances the effects of insulin in breaking down sugar for energy, and regulates the metabolism of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. One of cortisol's most important jobs is to help the body respond to stress. For this reason, women in their last 3 months of pregnancy and highly trained athletes normally have high levels of the hormone.
When the amount of cortisol in the blood is adequate, the hypothalamus and pituitary release less CRH and ACTH. This ensures that the amount of cortisol released by the adrenal glands is precisely balanced to meet the body's daily needs. However, if something goes wrong with the adrenals or their regulating switches in the pituitary gland or the hypothalamus, cortisol production can go awry.
- Rounding of the face (moon face)
- Facial redness (facial plethora or red cheeks)
- Acne
- Hump on back of neck (dorsocervical fat deposition), called a buffalo hump
- Weight gain around the belly with thinner arms and legs (truncal obesity) despite efforts to lose weight (lifestyle modifications)
- Pink or purple stretch marks (striae) on the skin of your abdomen, thighs, breasts and arms
- Thicker or more visible body and facial hair (hirsutism)
- Muscle weakness
- Extreme fatigue
- Thin and fragile skin that bruises easily
- Slow healing of cuts, insect bites and infections
- Bone thinning (recurrent fractures, osteoporosis)
- Recurrent infections
- Sleep disturbances (waking in the middle of the night)
- High blood pressure
- Diabetes mellitus
- Depression, anxiety, crying, and irritability
- Confusion, mind fog, slowed memory
- Low self-esteem
- Irregular or absent menstrual periods in females
- Decreased sex drive
When I read this list of symptoms, I couldn't believe myself. I knew I had just diagnosed myself. I was in shock. I was amazed. I had to wait over an hour before Jonathan came home from work. I remember that I waited for him to enter the house. I gave him a hug, and then I said, "I think I have Cushing's disease, and if it is, there is a 70% chance I have a tumor in my brain or pituitary." He of course was shocked too.
Not only did I experience nearly all of the symptoms on the list, I knew when I read the words "buffalo hump" that this was it. I just knew this is what I had.
Here is the buffalo hump picture I saw on the internet:
Here is my buffalo hump.
I searched the internet to see what else could cause a buffalo hump.
- Cushing's disease
- Long term use of steroids
- Morbid obesity
- AIDS medications
- Kyphosis
- Pituitary tumor
- Hyperinsulinaemia
I looked up all the unfamiliar terms, and I knew they didn't apply. It could only be Cushing's.
I set up an appointment to see a doctor that was listed as an endocrinologist in San Antonio who understood Cushing's. However, I couldn't get in to see him until May 9th.
So for the next six weeks, I researched. I read. I cried. It was so painful to watch my body get worse. The waiting was awful. I noticed weight gain, sleep loss and a sudden personality change. I felt like my life was spiraling downward. I recorded 40+ symptoms in a journal to monitor patterns in my illness.
I didn't feel like myself, and I remember the probability lessons from my math classes. If I only had a few symptoms from the above list, I couldn't say with much probability that it was Cushing's. But as my list of symptoms and health complaints mirrored nearly every one of the symptoms for Cushing's, I knew it made the diagnosis of Cushing's even more probable--and very improbable that it could be several other diseases all happening at the same time. A doctor later confessed that doctors are taught to find one diagnosis that fits the slate of symptoms. However, because doctors believe Cushing's is so rare and improbable, they often treat the symptoms. As a result, the patient rarely improves and years pass before the patient gets the help s/he needs and deserves.So I pushed forward, sought out information and specialists, all trying to see if I had indeed diagnosed myself. If not, I was prepared for someone to tell me what else it could be. As the days and months passed, doctors scratched their heads about my high cortisol and ACTH test results but yet hesitant to say for sure that it was Cushing's.
I always knew. And I will always be happy to say that, I was right. Even with news this devastating, it was important to finally know what ailed me. To my dying day, I will always be proud of my ability to trust my instincts and move forward despite all that I faced. :)
If you don't receive prompt treatment for Cushing's syndrome, other complications may occur, such as:
- Bone loss (osteoporosis), due to the damaging effects of excess cortisol
- High blood pressure (hypertension)
- Kidney stones
- Diabetes
- Unusual infections (some patients suffer from boils)
Luckily, I caught my case of Cushing's early enough that I don't have any of these long term complications. Unfortunately, I know many ladies and gentlemen who have these and are still struggling with doctors to get diagnosed. Over the years, the body becomes debilitated by the overproduction of cortisol, and the body's systems are compromised.


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Is it time to close down the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
I was a rock critic in a past life, so every year around this time, I still get a ballot allowing me to vote for my favorite nominees in the annual election at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Actually, I don't get to choose my favorite bands at all. The Hall of Fame is a notoriously top-down institution, with an elite group of insiders making up a nominating committee that pre-selects their own idiosyncratic idea of the worthy candidates. So all of us lowly peons are only allowed to vote for 5 out of 12 possible candidates, which judging from this year's nominees makes for slim pickings.
The list (read it and weep): ABBA, the Chantels, Jimmy Cliff, Genesis, the Hollies, KISS, LL Cool J, Darlene Love, Laura Nyro, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Stooges and Donna Summer.
It's pretty pathetic when you consider that you can vote for the Chantels and Darlene Love, but not for Linda Ronstadt, Steve Miller, Chicago, Rush, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Journey, Dire Straits or Stevie Ray Vaughan, just to name a few of the ineligible worthies. It's no wonder that Joel Selvin, the veteran San Francisco critic (and former member of the hall's nominating committee), has blasted the hall for its insular decision-making. He heaps most of the blame on Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, the hall's co-founder and dominant force, who is believed to be behind the mysterious last-minute selection of Grandmaster Flash over the Dave Clark 5, with Wenner apparently pushing aside the DC5 (finally inducted in 2008) so the hall could have a hip-hop group in the fold.
'This thing has sunk to a shameless level of manipulation and behind-the-scenes chicanery,' Selvin told the Detroit News in 2007. 'If it were a public institution--which it is--it would be held up for public ridicule.'
Despite my own shared concerns--I think it would a perfectly appropriate idea to close down the hall for repairs for a few years, until a few more deserving bands become eligible--I still feel obligated to vote. But I'd like some help. Take a second look at the names of the 2010 nominees above and let me know who you'd vote for--and why. Those of us who are actual voters are asked to choose a maximum of five nominees, using numbers (1-2-3-4-5) to signify our preferences. You can do the same. Here's how I'd make my choices as of now, but I'm open to being swayed by any especially passionate or persuasive arguments:
1) The Stooges. (They were short-lived, but had an indelible impact on my teen psyche. Any band that had the one-and-only Iggy Pop on board makes the cut for me.)
2) The Red Hot Chili Peppers. (Local L.A. boys made good, they capture the tumultuous spirit of rock and have made some terrific records along the way.)
3) Laura Nyro. (Nearly forgotten today, she was a seminal influence on Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash and untold other singer-songwriters.)
4) LL Cool J. (Probably not a major artist, but in his day, he was the epitome of cool.)
5) KISS. (I'm not a member of the Army and I think Gene Simmons is pretty obnoxious, but they were the voice of a generation--no one can forget their first KISS concert.)


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Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has placed a hold on an immigration bill in the Senate, which could give up to 10,000 visas a year to the Irish.
The Irish E3 legislation is part of a broader bill that would allow more hi tech workers from countries such as China, India and Mexico to come to America.
E-3s are temporary work visas that allow individuals or married couples to come to the U.S. with a job offer and work legally for two years at a time. The visa is indefinitely renewable.
Senator Charles Schumer D- New York moved to expedite the bill on Wednesday and had 53 Democratic co-sponsors.
Read more:
More news on Irish immgration from IrishCentral
San Antonio St. Patrick's Day Parade cancelled after 44 years - VIDEO
English landlord paid starving Irish tenants to play cricket at height of Famine
It is believed that up to eight Republicans will sign on led by Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, which would give the bill a filibuster-proof majority in the senate. Senator Susan Collins of Maine signaled her support on Wednesday
The Grassley hold was not unexpected, as he had made his intentions clear when the bill was first moved to the senate after easily passing the house, though the Irish visa proposal was not part of the original House bill.
On December 5th, Grassley stated his opposition to the bill when it came to the senate.
"I have concerns about the impact of this bill on future immigration flows, and am concerned that it does nothing to better protect Americans at home who seek high-skilled jobs during this time of record high unemployment," he said. Experts believe he is seeking a broader bill.
Computerworld magazine reported at the time that Grassley, with Sen. Dick Durban (D-Ill.), has been seeking for years to reform the H-1B visa program in order to give U.S. workers preference in hiring, increase the prevailing wages, and limit use of the visa by offshore outsourcing firms.
The attention now switches to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who is being lobbied by the hi-tech community and Irish Americans to find a solution to the Grassley impasse and allow the bill to pass the senate.
Irish lobbyists hope that McConnell, who is Irish American, will be sensitive to Irish concerns and also to those of the high tech lobby and point out that the new bill does not increase the number of Green Cards. Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore will be in Washington next week and is expected to seek a meeting with McConnell and possibly Grassley.
There is quiet confidence in the Irish camp that a solution to the impasse can be found given the combined strength of the hi-tech and Irish lobbies.


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Hydrogen and synthesis gas plant in Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia.
It's time to come clean! Compared with cars, trucks and planes, the world's ships rely on a particularly dirty form of fuel. Ship engines use what is known as heavy oil, a mixture of hydrocarbons with sulphur and nitrogen compounds. "Heavy oils are the highly viscous black residues from crude oil refining," explains Anton Jell, Vice President Business Development at Linde Engineering. When used in a ship's engine, they produce carbon dioxide as well as considerable amounts of sulphur and nitrogen oxides – emissions which are damaging to both human health and the environment. An International Maritime Organization (IMO) agreement has been reached to significantly restrict the use of these fuels in the near future. In late 2016, the IMO imposed a 2020 cap on marine fuel sulphur content, reducing it from today's level of 3.5 percent down to 0.5 percent. "Refineries will face a tricky situation from that point onwards – they will no longer be able to sell their heavy oil as marine fuel if the ships have not been retrofitted with costly exhaust gas treatment devices," says Jell. "But with our hydrogen technologies, we can offer refineries a solution that enables them to continue to valorise crude residue while also recovering other useful by-products."
The shipping industry needs greener fuels, which poses a major challenge for refineries. Linde Engineering offers new solutions with its hydrogen plants.
Sulphur removal
Hydrogen (H2) is already indispensable for refining operations. Companies use this gas to remove sulphur from the fuels they produce in a chemical separation process called hydrodesulphurisation. In this reaction, H 2 bonds with sulphur to form hydrogen sulphide, which is captured and further processed in another treatment step. "The sulphur content is an indicator of the quality of the crude oil. This determines the process steps that are required in a refinery," continues Jell. 'Sweet' or low-sulphur feedstock makes it easier to produce fuels like petrol, diesel, kerosene or heating oil. More processing is needed, on the other hand, for 'sour', or highly sulphurous crude oil – which means that more hydrogen is also needed.
Recovering hydrogen from heavy oil
Linde offers a process technology to recover hydrogen from heavy oil, as Jell explains: "Partial oxidation, or POX for short, is how we process heavy oil or refinery by-products like bitumen or pitch." For this, the feedstock is heated to temperatures of around 1,400 degrees Celsius and oxygen is added to support sub-stoichiometric conversion. The resulting synthesis gas is then further conditioned. "With the POX process, we can withdraw as much hydrogen from the heavy oil as possible. This makes our technology an interesting option for oil companies seeking to derive maximum value from their residues in future," maintains the Linde Engineering expert.
Hydrogen and pressure swing adsorption plant in Leuna, Germany.
H2 – bright prospects
Another advantage of the POX process is the fact that refineries can put the hydrogen they recover from heavy oil to good use. This is a valuable opportunity given the large volumes of this gas they need anyway – to desulfurize their fuel products for instance. "Much of the H2 produced globally is used to desulfurize fuel products so it is already making a key contribution to lower-pollution fuels. And with the trend towards stricter environmental regulations, demand for H2 is sure to remain on an upward path," according to Jell. He and his team are engaged in concrete discussions with several leading oil companies. "For these potential megaprojects, we are working closely with our colleagues from Linde Gas, who would be able to operate the plants for customers on site," points out Jell. The IMO cap means one thing above all for Linde's engineering and gas specialists: the oil industry will need more hydrogen – regardless of how it is sourced.
Steam reforming – the industry standard for hydrogen production
Partial oxidation (POX) is the ideal process for obtaining hydrogen from heavy oil. However, the most common method currently used to produce H2 is steam reforming. A light hydrocarbon, usually natural gas, is used as the feedstock. Its main component methane (CH4) contains more hydrogen than any other hydrocarbon. In the steam reformer, steam and natural gas are catalytically cracked at temperatures in the region of 850 degrees Celsius. This forms a synthesis gas – a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The carbon monoxide is converted into CO2 with steam in the downstream CO shift reaction, during which more hydrogen is produced. The H2-rich gas is finally purified to the desired quality level by means of pressure swing adsorption (PSA), membranes or cryogenic processes. Large steam reforming plants are currently able to produce more than 150,000 standard cubic metres of hydrogen per hour. To date, Linde has built over 300 H2 production plants around the world and has accumulated decades of experience in operating this technology.
Linde's HyCO and ammonia plants supply Sadara Chemical Company in Al Jubail with hydrogen and other industrial gases.


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PLAYA VISTA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Belkin today announced that it will launch two new accessories designed for Apple's Lightning connector, a hardwired car charger and Charge + Sync dock. These new accessories will be the first third-party Lightning accessories available in market and are the first of several new Lightning accessories from Belkin that will launch this year.
"Belkin was the first third-party manufacturer to develop accessories for the 30-pin connector back in 2003, and we are thrilled to be first to market again with solutions for the new Lightning connector," said Martin Avila, general manager of Belkin's core division. "People are eager for Lightning accessories and Belkin's give them a reliable way to keep their new iPhone 5, iPad 4th generation, iPad mini or iPod touch charged, protected, and ready to go."
Belkin Car Charger for Lightning (F8J075) $29.99
- Updated version of Belkin's best-selling, slim-profile car charger
- Hardwired 4' Lightning cable included
- Over-voltage protection to protect device
- MFi certified
- 10 watt, 2.1 amp
- Available in Black
Belkin Charge + Sync Dock (F8J057) $29.99
- Case-compatible
- Cable not included; for use with Apple-branded Lightning connector cable only
- Foldaway AUX jack
- Cable channel for easy cable feeding
- Removable magnetic base
- EarPods audio-out port for headphones or speakers
Belkin has been a trusted brand creating solutions to complement the Apple ecosystem for almost 30 years. Beginning with its first product, the "Hamlet" printer interface back in 1985 to the introduction of the first iOS-based Wi-Fi home control product, WeMo, in 2012, Belkin is well known for creating innovative, market-leading accessories that enhance and protect Apple's products. Belkin continues that tradition with the first third party accessories for the new Lightning connector.
Lightning accessories from Belkin are available for pre-order now on Belkin.com and will be available starting in mid-November.
About Belkin International, Inc.
To learn more about Belkin, visit http://www.belkin.com/aboutus/.
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/belkin, and follow us on Twitter at Twitter.com/belkin.
Apple, iPad, iPhone, iPod, and iPod touch are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50465429&lang=en


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Quietly, BMW has pulled into fast growing car share game.
The luxury automaker has brought its DriveNow program to San Francisco, California with the service opening up for business at the end of June. While there have been programs around the country where you could rent a luxury car for a few hours or a day (and yes, Zipcar has luxury cars), BMW is the first luxury automaker to run its own car sharing operation here in the U.S.
Here's how DriveNow works:
- 70 ActiveE electric cars are available for hourly rental
- Parked at 9 garages in the San Francisco area
- Licensed drivers over 21 may rent the cars
- $12/half-hour with each additional driving minute costing $.32
- $90 for an entire day up to 180 miles
The fact that BMW chose San Francisco and the ActiveE for daily rental is a smart strategic move. The city has proven to be one of the most enthusiastic markets for car sharing. It's also an area that embraces electric cars, so offering the ActiveE for daily rental is a smart way to get exposure for the car. Remember, the ActiveE is only available for lease here in the United States.
How successful will the DriveNow program be in San Francisco? Could we see it expanded to other markets? I think it will do well in the city bay area. And over time I can see DriveNow in other cities like Los Angeles, San Diego or Miami. More importantly, there is a clear opening in the car sharing industry for luxury models.
I'm not sure Zipcar or other car share operators like Hertz have a lot to worry about with the DriveNow program. Sure, they may lose some business to BMW in San Francisco, but Zipcar is primarily targeting the mass market. Zipcar does offer luxury models (including BMWs), but it also requires a membership fee, which BMW does not.
Click on Ticker to Track Corporate News:
- General Motors
- Ford Motor
- Toyota Motor
- Nissan
- Honda Motor
___________________________ Questions? Comments? firstname.lastname@example.com Follow me on Twitter @LeBeauCarNews


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Course description
Overview of Physical Crude Oil Trading and Operations is a two-day instructor-led course presented by the energy training experts at Mennta Energy Solutions. This course provides an introduction to the trading of physical crude oil. Delegates will gain an understanding of the knowledge possessed by a physical crude oil trader and the steps involved in negotiating a physical crude oil transaction. In addition, delegates will be given an overview of crude oil quality, vessel and pipeline transportation, and the terminology associated with this facet of the petroleum industry. Energy futures contracts and over the counter instruments are also covered in this course offering. There are periodic quizzes and a trading game in the course, and these reinforce the course material.
Includes Online Pre-study Module
This course is accompanied by a preparatory course available online. Delegates will receive a web voucher as part of their joining instructions upon confirmation of registration. By taking advantage of this "blended" learning approach, in-class time and learning are optimized.
Do you work at this organisation and want to update this page?
Is there out-of-date information about your organisation or courses published here? Fill out this form to get in touch with us.
This course is designed for those individuals new to the crude oil trading area and anyone interacting with crude oil trading personnel in their company. Specifically, operations, mid-office and back office employees would benefit from the material offered in this course. The course assumes no prior crude oil trading experience.
- What is crude oil?
Industry Components
- Major components of an integrated oil company
- What does each area do?
Upstream Sector
- How crude traders interface with upstream
- Areas where is crude oil produced
Midstream Sector
- How is crude oil transported?
- trucks, vessels, and pipelines
- Locations of crude oil markets
- Who trades crude oil?
- Evolution of crude prices
Downstream Sector
- Definition of refining processes
- Overview of worldwide refining
Crude Oil Characteristics
- Major crude oil quality factors
- gravity, sulfur, pour point, and viscosity
- The most commonly-traded crudes
- Synthetic crude and non-conventional crude sources
Crude Oil Pricing
- Benchmark crudes
- Major markets where crude is typically traded
- Term contracts
- Definition of a spot transaction vs. term deal
- How are crude prices determined?
- Netback calculations and GPW
- Physical markets
Paper Trading
- Definition of terminology within Paper markets
- Differentiation of oil futures vs. physical
- Futures markets locations and specification
- OTCs vs. futures
- Who uses futures? – market players and their roles
- Definition of EFP
- Brent crude oil traded markets
- Forwards and Swaps
Reasons For Trading Physical Crude Oil
- Why do companies trade crude oil?
- Refinery supply optimization and crude selection
- System balancing
- Trading for profit
Influences on Crude Oil Trading Decisions
- Fundamental analysis
- Definition of OPPEC and its role
- Locations of crude reserves and strategic storage
- Refinery shutdowns
- Crude inventories
Crude Oil Price Drivers
- Market structure – contango and backwardation
- Economic factors that affect supply and demand
- Geo-political factors
- Technical analysis
- Using fundamentals and Technical Analysis together
The Art of the Trade
- Trader networks and socializing
- How is a trade actually negotiated?
- Types of international purchases
- The terms negotiated in a crude oil deal
Crude Oil Operations, Credit, and Legal
- LOA definition
- Vessel chartering
- Different types of crude oil tankers
- Worldscale – definition and calculation
- Demurrage – definition and charges
- Minimising shipping costs
- Crude oil pipelines and scheduling
- Payments for crude oil transactions – credit issues and forms of security
- The role of lawyers in crude oil deal


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JOHANNESBURG – A top South African official is appealing for stability and dialogue ahead of a planned strike this week by tens of thousands of workers at platinum and gold mines.
Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said at a labor conference Wednesday that relations between workers and employers will only get worse if the two sides "dig in their heels." Motlanthe says the government will act decisively to enforce law and order.
In 2012, police shot and killed several dozen miners during labor unrest at a Lonmin platinum mine.
The strike for higher wages is set to begin Thursday and could affect more than half of platinum production in South Africa, the world's leading producer. It is expected to disrupt operations of mines owned by Lonmin, Anglo American and Impala.


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デンヴァー空港: 世界人間牧場への黙示
Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism & Toxic Warfare (ハードカバー)
Leonard G. Horowitz (著)
That AP photo is of a U.S. Navy barracks in Coronado, California. It's a complex built in the 1960s, according to the LA Times. Here's a nugget:
The U.S. Navy has decided to spend as much as $600,000 for landscaping and architectural modifications to obscure the fact that one its building complexes looks like a swastika from the air.
The four L-shaped buildings, constructed in the late 1960s, are part of the amphibious base at Coronado and serve as barracks for Seabees.
From the ground and from inside nearby buildings, the controversial shape cannot be seen. Nor are there any civilian or military landing patterns that provide such a view to airline passengers.
But once people began looking at satellite images from Google Earth, they started commenting about on blogs and websites about how much the buildings resembled the symbol used by the Nazis.
by oninomae | 2007-09-10 00:27 | ホロコースト


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Yamaha GS1 synthesizer advertisement from page 27 of Keyboard Magazine August 1981.
This GS1 introductory advertisement by the G. Leuenberger Company appeared once in Keyboard Magazine a full four months before Yamaha came out with their own ad introducing *the* grand-daddy of FM synthesis. I have to ask myself - How could Yamaha have let them scoop such an important advance in commercial synthesizer history?
Yup. The G. Leuenberger Company. I'd never heard of 'em. Until now.
But before I say a bit more about that, a little introduction of the GS1 is in order.
The GS1 was Yamaha's first commercially available synthesizer based on FM (frequency modulation) synthesis. And within two or three years, that preset FM technology had been repackaged for 1/10th the price in the DX7 - the first commercially successful programmable synthesizer and one of the best selling synthesizers of all time.
And so I ask the question again. With such a monumental technology breakthrough at stake, how could Yamaha let the G. Leuenberger Company get the word out first?
Well, I think at least part of the reason is that the technology was so new. The mindset of the day was that you needed a PhD in physics and/or a large bank account to program an FM synthesizer. Until there were programmable synthesizers out there, no one really needed to know much about how FM worked.
So, the GS1, and the next few FM synthesizers Yamaha released were all presets.
But someone had to program those presets. And you will see that is where G. Leuenberger comes in.
Or at least, I assume this is the same Leuenberger... it would be the weirdest coincidence in the world if it wasn't.
According to the online encyclopedia at associatepublisher.com, the original GS1 programming engineers from Japan couldn't too many musical sounds out of the beast.
"The Japanese engineers in Hamamatsu failed to create more than a handful of pleasing sounds for the GS1 with the 4-monitor programming machine, although one of them was used on the recording of "Africa" by Toto. At one point, Mr. John Chowning was invited to try to assist in creating new sounds with FM Synthesis. He came to the Yamaha R&D Studio, and spent a long time trying to make the FM theory result in a useful musical sound in practice. He gave up by the end of the day.That's gotta be the same Leuenberger.
Thereafter, a select group of prominent studio synthesists was hired by Yamaha to try to create the voice library for the GS1 (with that same programming tool). They included Gary Leuenberger (who at that time owned an acoustic piano outlet in San Francisco), and Bo Tomlyn (who later founded Key Clique, a third-party DX7 software manufacturer)."
And it makes him the perfect person to introduce the GS1 (and FM synthesis) to an American audience, not only through his demonstrations at NAMM, but through his store and in this advertisement as well. With or without Yamaha's backing.
(Also - unlike many other synthesizers around at the time, it probably didn't look that out of place in his piano store either. :o)
The ad itself does a great job of down-playing the rather complicated FM side of things - in fact, FM is only mentioned once in the whole advertisement, and only in relation to the 'vast spectrum of sounds' the technology is capable of. The rest of the advertisement is all about allowing the 'performer to concentrate on being a musician, not a programmer' - velocity sensitivity - after touch - simple front panel control.
Gary Leuenberger's name pops up a lot online, not only for his contribution to GS1, but synthesis in general.
According to the IEEE Global History Network's page on the Yamaha DX-7, Gary was also involved in programming the DX-7 as well:
"Apparently many DX-7 users found programming the device too difficult, and preferred instead to use the preset voices provided with the instrument. The credit for programming these voices goes to two individuals, David Bristow in the United Kingdom and Gary Leuenberger in the United States. The two developed a range of "voices"—imitation of bass guitars, brass instruments, bells, marimbas, the sound of a Fender Rhodes electric piano, and numerous special effects."A post on MATRIXSYNTH from June 2009 also mentions an auction that included information on Gary's involvement in a CS80 patch guide.
"Gary Leuenberger Patches Demo CD - This has been transferred from a cassette tape. It is an audio tape that discusses, in detail, the best way to utilize Gary's Patch Guide per patch. It's noisy, has noticeable channel crosstalk and overloads at points. However, The CD provides very detailed examples of his famous patches, how to create them and, more importantly, how to play them. If you follow Gary's instruction, you will get a unique look at some ways, in which, Gary uses initial and aftertouch and how he puts the CS80's envelopes and ring modulator to good use."An episode of Computer Chronicles that featured 'MIDI music' includes some good footage of Gary demonstrating some Yamaha synths as well as a sequencer and a drum machine.
You can view the Google Video below (Gary comes in around 2:50).
The best thing about writing this blog is finding out the back-story of so many synthesizers and the people that were involved 'behind the scenes' - programming sounds, creating advertising campaigns, etc.
I think people like Gary deserve a lot more credit than they get online.


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The Miami Hurricanes have parted ways with offensive coordinator Patrick Nix. Really, that's not much of a surprise. The bigger surprise -- what he told our Susan Miller Degnan after she, Barry Jackson and I spent the day trying to hunt him down.
Nix said he and Shannon split because of philosophical differences. "I wanted to be a little bit more wide open - no-huddle, spread out, go for it. And he wanted to be more two-back, conservative. It was a fine line in trying to balance the two. And not that one is better than the other, its just a different philosophy."
For most of Canes nation this may be seen as a relief -- especially after the way Miami's offense sputtered in the final two minutes of the Emerald Bowl. All season long, fans ripped into Nix for leading an offense which finished 89th in the country in total yardage despite finishing 3rd in the ACC in scoring at 24 points per game.
Monday afternoon I spoke with the father of quarterback Jacory Harris, who told me after relaying the rumors to his son that Nix was likely out that Jacory "sounded very disappointed." "He said he felt real bad for Coach Nix, but he understands this is all part of what big time football is about," Rodney Harris said. "He's always had a great relationship with Coach Nix, been to his house. He's always felt like he was a great guy."
The irony is if Nix's part of the story in relation to what he wanted with this offense is true, then Jacory Harris is not going to be happy with Nix leaving and Shannon staying. "I know the one thing Jacory would like to see with whoever the new coordinator is, is someone who will open up the offense a bit more. Jacory likes to open it up, throw the football. He wants to attack."
> Today's news is likely just the beginning of the changes. Several sources I spoke with this afternoon told me more changes are expected with other assistant coaches in the near future.
> I also consider today's Nix announcement the last straw for quarterback Robert Marve, who has been considering transferring for weeks. Nix and Marve were obviously close.


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Praise be to Allah.
If she gets her menses after doing tawaaf, she should carry on with her 'Umrah and it does not matter, because for what comes after tawaaf it is not essential to be in a state of purity from having broken one's wudoo' or be free of menses. End quote.


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Interview: John Petrucci's 7 steps to prog guitar greatness
We caught up with Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci, or 'Sir', as he's known to the team, along with his disciple and tour buddy Misha Mansoor to talk guitar heroes, technique development and how to harness the power of the internet.
Prog rock god John Petrucci is without doubt one of the most technically accomplished players in the world today. His is the kind of 'guitar-ing' that's capable of ripping a hole in the time-space continuum, curing ailments and, as proven recently, selling out Wembley Arena.
Pick up Total Guitar issue 226, on sale in the US this month, for the full in-depth interview with John Petrucci and Misha Mansoor, plus a special tutorial feature on John's ultimate warm-up routine.
Have a hero, even if you won't be them
Everybody needs to have a hero or two when they're learning guitar: it keeps you inspired, drives you to become better and keeps your feet on the ground when you become totally mega famous...
Misha Mansoor: "When I was 17, I decided that I needed to become John Petrucci. I went out and bought a Petrucci seven-string and learned as much Dream Theater as humanly possible. I realised really fast that it was not gonna happen..."
John Petrucci: "I think emulating somebody or the path they took is actually a great way to achieve success. I did the same thing. I said, 'Well, Steve Vai went to Berklee: I'd better go to Berklee. Randy Rhoads took his guitar to school: I'm taking my guitar to school'.
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Don't fear the teacher
Not all teachers are boring tank-top fans, some of them are radical, down-with-the-kids guitar-types. As any true virtuoso will tell you, there's no better way to learn than by hanging out with other players - and then stealing their moves.
John Petrucci: "[I went to] Berklee, a jazz school, and I didn't have a lot of jazz background, so getting into some of the chord melody and improv classes was tough but challenging. The way I visualised it is that your playing goes in steps. You get to a plateau, then something clicks and 'boom'."
Misha Mansoor: "I've always been the kind of person who says 'screw the manual'. I've tried learning theory a bunch of times and I end up cheating and using my ear. Guitar playing has been a real struggle for me, because I have really bad technique. It's like the step thing: it feels like I plateau, then the next day for some reason it starts to makes sense. I'd also hang around musicians who are better than I am, because it's free guitar lessons."
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Learn the merits of modelling
John is a valve-amp stalwart, whereas Misha was raised on a diet of home recording software - a modern modelling man, if you will...
Misha Mansoor: "I love amps. I listen to his Mark V tone and think, 'Ah, maybe I should…' But for practical purposes, the Axe-Fx is amazing. We didn't have to rent backline on this tour, we carry our rigs in our carry-ons, we have patch changes controlled by computer – and they've never messed up. With my old rigs, you'd hit that standby switch and the sound didn't come on, and it's like, 'What did I mess up?' Now, it's very easy to troubleshoot."
John Petrucci: "I like both schools. I've always played amps and I always will. In the studio and live, there's nothing like the interaction of a guitar cranking through a Boogie. It's like a drug to me. But the guys at Fractal have come up with an incredible piece of gear that I use in my rig for all the processing effects, my choruses, delays, pitch shifters…"
Read Total Guitar's Fractal Axe-FX II review
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Don't be a 4/4 bore
Complex time signatures separate the men from the boys in prog rock, but it's important not to sacrifice groove.
Misha Mansoor: "A huge influence was Meshuggah, and their ability to do seemingly odd time signatures, but really have it all be in 4/4. I love something you can just bob your head to, right? But what I took away from them was that you can get very playful with your beats, accents and syncopation, and make things that are a straight 4/4 sound like they aren't. I do that a lot. I listened to a lot of Dream Theater!"
John Petrucci: "I was always a big Rush and Yes fan, and it was like, 'Well, these guys are doing it and it doesn't always have to be 4/4'. That modulation of meters came naturally to me.
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Find your own sound
John Petrucci has developed a distinctive voice on guitar, mainly because his stuff is often nigh-on impossible for us mere mortals to play, but as the Dream Theater man says, finding your own sound isn't just about technique.
John Petrucci: "I love Misha's sound. It has aggression, but there's clarity and it has a personality: it sounds like your tone is talking. You know, Periphery has a sound, and I'll show my age here, but I have two 16 year olds and their buddies are so into his style. It's like you've started off a new generation. They'll say to me, 'Why can't you play something like that?'"
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P-p-pick up your picking
Petrucci's alternate picking is the stuff of legends, and although Misha puts himself down by comparison, both players need to have extremely solid right hands to play their unique brands of progressive metal.
John Petrucci: "I come from the school of power picking. Guys like Steve Morse and Al DiMeola were heroes, just the way they seemed so in command of their right and left hand co-ordination, really attacked the strings and ripped through things. It finally clicked when somebody told me what a metronome was.
Misha Mansoor: "I've always been rubbish at alternate picking! That was definitely a challenge. This is the master [points to Petrucci]; you can hear the pick attack on every note and it's always locked in perfectly."
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Master the power of the internets!
Many of the larger progressive bands have a much larger online presence than their equivalents in the mainstream. If you want to spread the word to like-minded people, you'll need to start posting...
John Petrucci: "It's completely necessary. The music that we're playing in Periphery and Dream Theater is not the type of thing that gets mainstream exposure. The network of fans all connecting, interchanging, trading stories… it's essential for bands like ours to spread the word."
Misha Mansoor: "I'd just post songs online [to SoundClick], and people seemed to dig them and I was always corresponding. Yeah, criticism comes with the territory. It's a loud minority, and the plain truth is that 99 per cent of these people would never tell you that to your face."
John Petrucci: "You have to always maintain self-confidence, because if you lose that identity and play into what everybody's saying, then you're losing yourself, and the music isn't gonna have the same conviction… and then you're done."
Pick up Total Guitar issue 226, on sale in the US this month, for the full in-depth interview with John Petrucci and Misha Mansoor, plus a special tutorial feature on John's ultimate warm-up routine.
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Meet Salman Khan, your child's new teacher. If you haven't heard of Khan, rest assured that your son or daughter is in good hands. He has four degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard. He got a perfect score on the math portion of his SAT. And he's very experienced, having taught more than 85 million lessons to students all over the world.
Khan is the former hedge fund manager who set out to tutor his young cousin in math with a homemade video he posted online. From that modest beginning has grown the Khan Academy, a free online library of more than 2,700 videos offering instruction in everything from algebra to computer science to art history. Running the nonprofit academy is now Khan's full-time job, and he plans to expand the enterprise further, adding more subject areas, more faculty members (until now, all the videos have been narrated by Khan himself) and translating the tutorials into the world's most widely used languages.
Much attention has been paid to the use of Khan Academy videos in classrooms. Hundreds of schools across the U.S. have integrated his lessons into their curricula, often using them to "flip" the classroom: students watch the videos at home in the evening, then work on problem sets — what would once have been homework — in class, where there are teachers to help and peers to interact with. The approach is promising, and it may well change the way American students are taught.
(PHOTOS: The Evolution of the College Dorm)
The real revolution represented by Khan Academy, however, has gone mostly unremarked upon. The new availability of sophisticated knowledge, produced by a trusted source and presented in an accessible fashion, promises to usher in a new golden age of the autodidact: the self-taught man or woman. Not just the Khan Academy, but also the nation's top colleges and universities are giving away learning online. Khan's alma mater, MIT, has made more than 2,000 of its courses available gratis on the Internet. Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon are among the other elite institutions offering such free education. When Stanford announced last August that it would be opening to the online public a course on artificial intelligence, more than 70,000 people signed up within a matter of days. The course's two professors say they were inspired to disseminate their lessons by the example of Salman Khan. Khan Academy's own videos now go well beyond basic algebra to teach college-level calculus, biology and chemistry.
This bonanza of educational opportunity recalls an earlier era in American history, and another man determined to make learning available to all: the steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Between 1886 and 1919, he helped open 1,679 public libraries in communities all over the United States. Carnegie, a poor weaver's son from Scotland who never went to college, gratefully recalled the generosity of a wealthy gentleman who opened his personal library to local working boys, and he resolved use his own riches to make books available to everyone. The list of Americans who educated themselves at the nation's public libraries is a storied one: the writer Jack London, the poet Kahlil Gibran, the memoirist Frank McCourt and the playwright August Wilson are among those who made libraries their schools.
Today, of course, knowledge no longer needs to be bound into the paper and cloth of a book but can float free on the wireless waves of the Internet. There's a lot of junk bobbing in those waves as well — information that is outdated, inaccurate, or flat-out false — so the emergence of online educational materials that are both free of charge and carefully vetted is a momentous development. This phenomenon is all the more significant given the increasing scrutiny directed at for-profit online universities, which have been criticized for burdening students with debt even as they dispense education of questionable usefulness. Websites offering high-quality instruction for free are the Carnegie libraries of the 21st century: portals of opportunity for curious and motivated learners, no matter what their material circumstances.
(MORE: Digital Literacy Will Never Replace the Traditional Kind)
So valuable is the knowledge now being made available, in fact, that one might wonder if the elite universities posting their courses online are putting themselves out of business. Who needs to attend MIT when you can watch its professors lecture from the comfort of home? Actually, the reality is precisely the opposite. As more and more people gain access to sophisticated knowledge, employers and other institutions face an ever-greater need to distinguish among them. This is where competitive universities, with their elaborate admissions processes, come in. We're entering an era in which elite education is cheap, but elite credentials are increasingly — for most, prohibitively — expensive. Perhaps experiments like the Khan Academy won't only flip middle- and high-school classrooms, but the entire experience of higher education. Harvard, Yale and Princeton will become glorified offices of admissions, bestowing nothing more than their coveted imprimatur, while impecunious but ambitious learners will avail themselves of an Ivy League education without the degree.
It's still the case, of course, that workers with a college degree earn more on average than those who don't. And perhaps universities' online beneficence deserves a dose of skepticism: each downloaded class is an hours-long advertisement for the school, after all, and providing open-source courseware is a smart public-relations move when the cost of tuition continues to rise faster than the rate of inflation. But the fact remains that the kind of education once reserved for a monied and connected elite is now available to all comers, with consequences we can only begin to imagine. Especially in our unpredictable economy, which is opening new opportunities even as it is foreclosing conventional ones, we may well see the rise of a self-taught elite — leaders and creators who didn't have the time or money for a traditional college education, but who nonetheless taught themselves what they needed to know.
Somewhere, Andrew Carnegie is smiling.


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This blog is not about how to catch a man, lose a man or make your man happy. It is not about how to arrange a seasonal flower bouquet, where to get a facial or starting your own business on eBay. I don't have any advice about how to fulfill your parents' expectations, make an amazing three-course meal in 45 minutes or sleep around, but do so in style.
Nor will you find in here any insight about being single for the sake of being single, being in a relationship for the sake of not being single or getting married because all of your trusted role models show you that is what you are supposed to do at this point in your life. Forget everyone else's timeline.
Admittedly this all started as a "Rah, rah for singledom!," subtext: "Oh, God, this is great - why don't people just stay single forever?" No, it wasn't going to encourage you to run out and book your annual photo shoot at the Sears studio with you and your pet in matching holiday sweaters, but the subtext was celebrating singleness as a relief. That was about 10 years ago, as I was emerging from a relationship that had rotted long before I clipped myself loose.
Then the rah-ness settled a little and more balance crept into the picture.
I have not yet married. Over the last nine-plus years of being single - i,e. not in a serious relationship - for most of which I have been absolutely single-but-dating except for a few brief flickers, I started to hear something entirely different. This was not the fireworks and Main Street Parade through Singleville with my single friends and me as the majorettes as I had sometimes imagined. Instead, all of the excitement settled into a strong, steady and beautiful hum that has continued as a promise to all of us.
The promise is that being single where and when we are now is our exquisite opportunity to make the most of this time to become our most self-fulfilled. To become our most us.
That is what this blog is about.
There are many books and blogs about that, but the problem is most of them are written by people who are not single, are not our age or are not even women. Instead, this book is a peer expert's guide to being happy now. Not when you get the boyfriend or the promotion or when you lose the 15 pounds.
It is about making the most of being single today and happy about it. About not being in a rush toward anything, but embracing everything with peace and a fair amount of sarcasm. About being happy with our life exactly how we make it. The bigger picture.
If you are not happy with your life as it is, then perhaps you will find some encouragement on here to change it. That's your call. Enjoy.


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[This is a MPIWG MPDL language technology service] |
Second (a.) Immediately following the first; next to the first in order of place or time; hence, occuring again; another; other.
Second (a.) Next to the first in value, power, excellence, dignity, or rank; secondary; subordinate; inferior.
Second (a.) Being of the same kind as another that has preceded; another, like a protype; as, a second Cato; a second Troy; a second deluge.
Second (n.) One who, or that which, follows, or comes after; one next and inferior in place, time, rank, importance, excellence, or power.
Second (n.) One who follows or attends another for his support and aid; a backer; an assistant; specifically, one who acts as another's aid in a duel.
Second (n.) Aid; assistance; help.
Second (n.) An article of merchandise of a grade inferior to the best; esp., a coarse or inferior kind of flour.
Second (a.) The sixtieth part of a minute of time or of a minute of space, that is, the second regular subdivision of the degree; as, sound moves about 1,140 English feet in a second; five minutes and ten seconds north of this place.
Second (a.) In the duodecimal system of mensuration, the twelfth part of an inch or prime; a line. See Inch, and Prime, n., 8.
Second (n.) The interval between any tone and the tone which is represented on the degree of the staff next above it.
Second (n.) The second part in a concerted piece; -- often popularly applied to the alto.
Second (a.) To follow in the next place; to succeed; to alternate.
Second (a.) To follow or attend for the purpose of assisting; to support; to back; to act as the second of; to assist; to forward; to encourage.
Second (a.) Specifically, to support, as a motion or proposal, by adding one's voice to that of the mover or proposer.


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Schizophrenia Information > An Intro to Schizophrenia (including Paranoid Schizophrenia) | ||||||||||||
An Introduction to Schizophrenia |
Overview and Introduction - Schizophrenia and Paranoid Schizophrenia There is a lot of information here - so please be sure to scroll all the way down to the bottom.
Introductory Tips for Family Members of People with Schizophrenia
Types of Schizophrenia and Related Illnesses
Dr. Herbert Y. Meltzer, a professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University
and an expert on schizophrenia, has said, "the psychosis part of
schizophrenia is almost a late stage in the evolution of the disease
process." and that, "the key message is that this is a neurodevelopmental
disorder and that changes in memory, learning, attention and executive
decision-making precede the experience of the psychosis." Differences in How Schizophrenia Impacts Men
and Women Recommended Books on Schizophrenia - for people new to the disease Recommended Books on Day-to-Day Coping Strategies for Families Additional Important Educational Information on Schizophrenia
The Risks of Getting Schizophrenia
How the Experts recommend that Schizophrenia is Treated
Popular Press News Stories on Schizophrenia
| |
This site does not provide medical or any other health care or fitness advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The site and its services, including the information above, are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical or health advice, examination, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health professional before starting any new treatment, making any changes to existing treatment, or altering in any way your current exercise or diet regimen. Do not delay seeking or disregard medical advice based on information on this site. Medical information changes rapidly and while Schizophrenia.com makes efforts to update the content on the site, some information may be out of date. No health information on Schizophrenia.com, including information about herbal therapies and other dietary supplements, is regulated or evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and therefore the information should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease without the supervision of a medical doctor.


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Roast Chicken with Garlic and Lemon
Check Out: Roast Chicken Recipes
Note: This was first posted in Dec 2008, now updated with new photos and improved recipe.
With Christmas around the corner, it's the time of the year to cook more hearty meals like a whole roast chicken. We were extremely satisfied with the end result of this particular roast chicken, I think largely due to the butter mixture which was stuffed underneath the chicken skin. For those who have not roasted a chicken before, you have to totally try it out this holiday season. Roasts like this is relatively fuss-free because the oven is doing 90% of the work, leaving the cook time to sit back and unwind this holiday season. A whole roasted chicken like this makes great party food for all occasions.
The reason why we have been roasting a chicken instead of a traditional turkey these few years – (1) my standalone oven is too small to fit in a whole turkey, (2) we are feeding only 2 persons, (3) chicken is much cheaper than turkey, (4) chicken meat usually tastes juicier and less dry than turkey, at least to me. If you are a fan of roast chicken too, do check out the other roast chicken recipes.
58 comments on "Roast Chicken with Garlic and Lemon"
Hi Wiffy,
The lemon butter-parsley paste do I stuff it only under the breast part of the skin or must also stuff it under the thigh n drumstick part of the skin too?
only the breast.
Btw too Wiffy,
Is the parsley you used similar to the chinese parsley aka coriander/cilantro? Can I use the latter too?
Hi Jonelle, nope it's the western type. either the curly-parsley or flat-leaft parsley. You can use coriander but the effect will be Chinese-style. Parsley is milder in my opinion.
May i know the point 2, this pasty is for wrapping the whole chicken?
When to apply?
Please advise
the paste prepared in step 2 is for stuffing under the chicken skin (step 4).
Hi, I'm a complete noob in cooking. Wish to check with you:
A) those whole chicken that we can buy from NTUC – I suppose we have to remove the neck and innards ourselves? Can you explain how do you know that the innards have been completely removed?
B) mixture (B) should be stuffed in the place where the innards were, prior to their removal?
C) step 6 – is it 30 min at 200 deg C then another 10 min at 220 deg C, or 20 min at 200 deg then 10 min at 220? Can you give the power output of yr oven so tt we can roughly gauge? Thanks! -
Where can we buy cooking twine in Sg?


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It may be the toughest job in the aviation industry.
Peter Bellew is overseeing the revamping of Malaysia Airlines, the struggling carrier that was nationalized after it lost two passenger jets with hundreds of people aboard in separate disasters in 2014.
Bellew, the airline's third CEO in less than three years, has clear ideas for what it needs to do. That includes driving down costs and turning its fleet of A380 superjumbo jets into charter planes for Muslim pilgrims.
"I think this will be the greatest turnaround in the history of aviation and maybe even of any business," he told CNNMoney's Richard Quest.
Related: Malaysia Airlines is 1st carrier to sign up for new satellite-tracking service
The changes at the airline in recent years have been dramatic. It shed about 6,000 jobs and scrapped most of its long-haul routes to focus on flights within Asia.
"I don't believe people in the [United] States or in Europe quite get the scale of the economy that there is here," said Bellew, a former executive at low-cost Irish airline Ryanair (RYAAY). He sees Malaysia growing as a transit hub for the rest of the region.
Retooling the airline's A380s is one of his big moves.
Next year, the six superjumbos will be retired from normal service and offered for charter by groups undertaking the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
The huge planes will be overhauled to carry as many as 715 passengers, with a business class section, prayer areas and washing zones for feet and hands.
"We are trying to capture 5-6% of the global market, which is growing all the time," Bellew said. "People save to go to this for up to 30 years, and we've got great interest in the product already."
Related: 12 of the best aircraft liveries
For the carrier's main business, he's trying to balance the need to cut costs with reestablishing Malaysia Airlines as a premium brand.
The company is succeeding in winning back passengers. At the end of last year, it hit its highest load factor -- a measure of how full its planes are -- in a decade.
And the airline's name isn't changing. Despite the baggage of the disasters the airlines suffered in 2014 -- the disappearance of Flight 370 and the shooting down of Flight 17 -- Bellew says ditching the company brand would have thrown away decades of heritage.
"The world loves the brand Malaysian Airlines," he said. "It's an asset the company can't let go of right now."
After the disasters, the company was pulled from the stock market and taken private by Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional. The aim now is to list its shares again by 2019.
Bellew says he took on the job because he knew it wouldn't be easy.
"It's that challenge and that sense that I can help out or make them move the thing along and get it fixed," he said.
-- Michala Sabnani contributed to this report.


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